The invention relates generally to the field of chemical synthesizers. More particularly, the invention provides systems and methods for synthesizing various diverse chemical products on solid supports such as beads.
Diverse chemical products find a wide variety of uses, such as in drug discovery, genetic studies and the like. Exemplary diverse chemical products that are useful in scientific studies include peptides, oligonucleotides, and other related materials.
The synthesis of diverse chemical products typically proceeds by synthesizing diverse collections of molecules on a plurality of solid supports, such as beads. To do so, a variety of synthesizers and techniques have been proposed, such as, for example, those described in copending U.S. application Ser. No. 08/146,886, filed Nov. 2, 1993 now U.S. Pat. No. 5,639,603, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference.
When synthesizing, the various reagents are typically mixed with the solid supports. Such mixing can be especially challenging, particularly since it is desirable to synthesize the compounds to the entire surface area of the supports. Synthesizing can also be challenging since it is often desirable to have the reactions occur at various temperatures which are precisely controlled and monitored. For example, it may be desirable to synthesize the same compound on various solid supports at different temperatures so that it may be determined at which temperature synthesis is most effective.
Following synthesis, it is often desirable to biologically screen the compounds synthesized on the beads, e.g., as a tool in drug discovery. To do so, the various compounds are often removed from the beads and subjected to various screening processes. A variety of automated high throughput screening devices have recently been proposed to screen the compounds. Such screening devices usually employ commercially available handling plates, such as standard 48- or 96-well plates, to handle the various compounds during the screening process.
Hence, it would be desirable to provide a high throughput chemical synthesizer having exemplary mixing capabilities so that the solid supports and reagents may be efficiently mixed during synthesis. It would further be desirable if such a synthesizer allowed various reactions to take place at different temperatures which could be closely monitored and controlled. It would further be desirable if such a synthesizer allowed for the removal of the synthesized compounds for subsequent screening, particularly with commercially compatible screening and handling equipment.